This year I was seeing my immediate family on my mother’s birthday and my husband’s aunt’s birthday. Both in early October. I decided to let bring presents not only for them, but also for a young niece and nephew how have birthdays in August and September. Plus Christmas presents for all the nieces and nephews. Phew that was a lot of gift giving sewing! Luckily everything was small and did not take up much room in the luggage.

Birthday presents:

For my niece I made her a hedgehog from a Jo Carter pattern as seen in Simply Sewing (UK sewing magazine I love). Like I stated in my last post, I don’t usually follow patterns for stuffed animals. But these are really some whimsical super cute stuffed animals.

My niece and her hedgehog. Plus bow in her hair!

For my nephew I made a triangle with letters on it. He immediately grabbed it and ran off with it. Perfect size. Now if he wasn’t so quick I could have got some more pictures of him with it.

My nephew, still holding onto his triangle!

For both my mom and aunt I created their own potholder/hot plate trivet out of fabric. I also cut out and sewed an individual design to each. For my mother I made a simple heart that I used a wide blanket stitch to attach to the top of it. For our aunt I drew a dove, used a little bit of fabric marker to outline a branch it was holding and hand stitched it onto the top. This took some time. I drew my design out of paper first and used that as a pattern piece to cut out the fabric. Then trimmed the fabric as needed.

Front side of potholder. Dove cut out.

Christmas presents:

Two nephews equal two double bow ties that match! If the family every is able to coordinate then I will imagine both of them wearing their bow ties the same time. I won’t hold my breath through.

For my nieces. The little one got hair bows that match the bow ties. She immediately took them apart. I fixed them, but she is in the take apart stage so these may need some fixing again when I next visit them. The older one got a little bag I constructed out of interior design fabric. She likes dark colors so I made it black/auburn and dark purple. It can be used quite literally for anything. I think she will find use for it. I know I have for each little bag I’ve made myself!

I’ll have to work on getting some pictures of these things. Seems I was in such a hurry making I didn’t document! That happens with most of my creations. I make them and pass them onto others without ever taking any images. Haven’t we all though : )

Now I just have two more birthdays and three more Christmas plus Hanukkah presents to make for 2017! Better get back to my sewing machine!

Like this:

For my nephew’s birthday I decided to sew him a lion. I followed a pattern in Issue 21 of the UK magazine Simply Sewing by Jo Carter of Two Owls Design. Of course I did a few things my own way. I used fabric I had, made everything the same fabric, added buttons for eyes instead of safety eyes, sewed them and the mouth on before I was finished and then made the lion a vest out of felt without a pattern. I added buttons to the vest that seemed royal. My first stuffed animal made from someone else’s pattern. I think it came out great. My nephew likes his lion and our cat does too.